Christine

Fred Preiss' 84-foot custom sloop Christine was leading its division in the Los Angeles Yacht Club's 860-mile Cabo San Lucas race Sunday with 188 miles logged in the first 20 hours. The fleet is divided between the Performance Handicap Racing Fleet and the International Offshore Rule rating system. Christine is a PHRF entry. Leading the IOR division was John Landon's Santa Cruz-70 Kathmandu, 182 miles from the start, with Roy Disney's Nelson-Marek 68 Prima one mile astern.

Christine McVie will reunite with her Fleetwood Mac bandmates and tour for the first time in 16 years for nearly three dozen shows across North America, beginning Sept. 30 in Minneapolis and reaching Southern California for two nights at the Forum in Inglewood on Nov. 28 and 29. “ It was so comfortable being back onstage with them, as if no time had passed, and then we all started talking, and it feels like the time is right,” McVie said in a statement, referring to her guest spot with Stevie Nicks, Lindsay Buckingham, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood last year at London's O2 Arena.

THE cast of CBS' "The New Adventures of Old Christine" has just finished the first scene of the show's second-season finale. The studio audience has laughed big eight times in 12 pages of script, making the warm-up guy's smile just as big. But this, apparently, is not enough. The writers and producers huddle quickly behind the video monitors while the actors hang loose.

Christine Wu appeared in one of the year's most viral videos thus far: Billy Ray Cyrus' hip-hop remix of "Achy Breaky Heart. " She played the electric violin - while doing a backbend. Wu, who lives in Santa Monica, is breaking new ground in the performing arts by combining dance, yoga and complicated choreography with the violin. Wu recently talked about how she trains, how movement fuels her creativity and how she's carved out her niche career. You do yoga and ballet as well as working out at the Venice Beach gym. How does your exercise regimen help with the physicality of playing the violin?

If a one-eyed gypsy with very bad teeth asks you for anything, and really, I cannot emphasize this enough, say yes. Don't waver, don't bargain; anything short of yes could put you on a fast track to damnation as surely as a broken mirror will bring you seven years of bad luck. Look at what happens to Christine, a very good egg boiled to perfection by circumstance and a lot of good work by Alison Lohman.

As "The Phantom of the Opera" prepares to disappear from the Ahmanson Theatre for the last time Sunday, it's time to tell stories. To most of the onlookers, L.A.'s "Phantom"--played by Michael Crawford, Robert Guillaume and Davis Gaines--appeared to be a marvel of well-oiled stagecraft. But appearances can deceive--which is perhaps appropriate, considering that the show is about a man with appearance problems of his own.

Re "Is The End Near?" (July 30): "Driver may disappear at any time?" Give me a break--the freeways are dangerous enough already. Christians who really believe in the Rapture should have a "designated sinner" in the car with them at all times. CHRISTINE A. LEHMAN Los Angeles

Two teens, drawn together after witnessing a murder, find their growing attraction affected by another tragedy: societal prejudices. "Different Worlds: A Story of Interracial Love" is today's "CBS Schoolbreak Special" (3 p.m., Channels 2 and 8), a sensitive look at the multitude of barriers that prevent human connections between racial and ethnic groups. Christine (Noelle Parker) and Jordan (Duanne Martin) live in worlds that barely touch: She's white, he's black.

Ronald N. Tapper has been named executive vice president of National Education Corp., Irvine, responsible for corporate strategic planning. Tapper, who joined the company in 1980, had been senior vice president. In addition, Christine A. Gattenio and Keith Ogata were named vice presidents. Gattenio is controller and Ogata is treasurer.

Fred Preiss' 84-foot custom-sloop Christine out of Pacific Mariners Yacht Club finished at 8:26:47 a.m. Sunday to claim elapsed-time honors in the 38th Newport-to-Ensenada yacht race. Christine finished five seconds behind the 62-foot sloop Ragtime but was awarded first to finish honors because she started in another class 10 minutes behind Ragtime, skippered by Dick Deaver of Los Angeles Yacht Club. The finish between the two yachts was one of the closest in the history of the race.

WASHINGTON -- Republicans accused of waging a "war on women" attempted to send a message to the nation with the selection of Washington state Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the top woman in GOP leadership and a mother of three, to deliver the party's response Tuesday night to President Obama's State of the Union address. The House GOP, though, will send another message just hours before the president visits the House chamber -- voting on a bill called the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act, which seeks to expand a prohibition on the use of federal dollars to pay for abortions.

WASHINGTON - President Obama has named Christine H. Fox to be acting deputy Defense secretary, making the former chief of weapons cost analysis the most senior woman in Pentagon history. Fox will replace Ashton Carter, who has stepped down. She was described by officials as a temporary choice while the search continues for a permanent deputy to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Her hiring reflects the administration's need to place an experienced manager in the Pentagon's second-ranking position at a time when it is facing steep budget cuts.

To fashion the costumes for Summit Entertainment's military sci-fi film "Ender's Game," designer Christine Bieselin Clark used not only patterns and sewing machines but also lasers and magnets. Crafting futuristic threads and helmets for the film, which opens Nov. 1, was "sci-fi just in its process," she said. Bieselin Clark, 41, began her career in a much lower-tech space: the theater. She grew up on Long Island, a stone's throw from Broadway, earned a degree in theater arts from Stony Brook University and went on to design costumes for regional theater productions all over the East Coast.

Romance and humor are famous homebodies; they never travel as much as they should. Shot mainly in Los Angeles' Koreatown, the genre elements of the romantic comedy "Wedding Palace" attempt a transpacific transit, but get lost in translation. Director Christine Yoo's ambitious debut speaks to Korean American courtship and familial relations while satirizing them, and the result is as inventive - stuffed with animated sequences, a music video and a fake commercial - as it is tonally muddled.

As the Federal Reserve weighs an imminent cut in its extraordinary economic stimulus, many outside the United States are pleading with the Fed: "Would you consider the impact on us too?" That essentially was the message Friday from the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. Speaking at the Fed's summer conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Lagarde turned the spotlight on what has emerged as the main global economic issue of the day - the bold actions of central banks and, as she put it, how these policies "in one corner of the world can reach all corners.

The corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Highland Avenue offers a picture postcard view of the new, revitalized Tinseltown. The boulevard is jammed with tourists, the streets lined with tour buses. Street performers dressed in colorful costumes entertain and panhandle on the sidewalk in front of chain stores such as Forever 21, Sephora, the Hard Rock Cafe and Express. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel films his late-night show across the street. But this week, Hollywood got a stark reminder that for all the upscale development and trendy venues, the district hasn't fully shaken off its darker past.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich became a first-time father Wednesday. Antonovich's wife, Christine, gave birth to an 8-pound, 1-ounce boy at about 7:35 p.m. at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank. They named the child Michael D. Antonovich Jr. The Antonoviches, married last year, were both reported in good condition. Antonovich, 59, was present for the birth, according to his spokesman, Cam Currier.

A comment regarding "Couple Find Love Amid the Pain of Lung Cancer," Aug. 19: I have been following this story since the beginning; I find it very difficult to believe that Claire Chasles' new husband, Joe, and her daughter, Christine, who is eight months pregnant, both still smoke as they witness Claire's horrible life-and-death battle with cancer. Haven't they learned by Claire's example what this dangerous addiction can do to a person and the family? It is wonderful that Claire and Joe will share a loving marriage for the time she has left, but it's sad that Christine is knowingly putting her unborn child's life in jeopardy.

June 19, 2013 | By Marisa Gerber and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

As Christine Darlene Calderon strolled down Hollywood's Walk of Fame with her co-worker just after sunset on Tuesday, an amusing cardboard sign caught her eye. She pulled out her cellphone to snap a picture of men displaying signs asking for money with four-letter insults and a smiley face. Moments later, according to a law enforcement source, one of the men demanded she pay a dollar for the picture. When she refused, police say, two of the men allegedly pinned Calderon's co-worker against a wall.